Hive inspection 2/19/2017

It was over 60 for a few days so checked hives. Hive 1 still has a sugar hill, stores and brood look great. Quite aggressive which seemed unusual for them, but it is off-season and they haven't been touched for months. Will have to give them more frames very soon.
Moved more quickly through hive 2 which has 2 supers. Lots of stores. Burr comb with larvae. Bottom box was empty so we swapped and put it on top.

Memorial Day weekend hive inspection - added boxes

Bees are building up nicely. Lots of bees in the boxes. Added a box to each, making 2 medium-frame supers on each hive. After discarding old frames whose wax had become too old and dark, we found ourselves a couple frames short. They'll have to try to do without. Actually we plan to get some more foundation and spare frames soon. We want to have another couple boxes on hand in case we can catch a good honey flow, we don't want to run out of room. Hive one bees are dark and more docile, hive two (on the right) bees are lighter brown. In the past they have gone on alert by the time we finished hive one inspection, so we started with hive two and it went better.

New bees installed

Bought two bee packages from Virginia bee supply, installed 4/23/2016. Set up one hive box for each, installed bottom boards, entrance reducers, and boardman feeders. Put the rest of the corn syrup from the package feeders into the boardmans. Checked Monday 4/25, found queens were released. Starting to fill stores from boardman - clear liquid in some cells. Did not see queens, which are unmarked. bought sugar and refilled boardmans. Here we go again, best of luck to our new girls.

Beeswax in metalworking and haymaking

Neat article from Grit magazine. I'm finding lots of interesting bee articles on this keepingbackyardbees.com site. Beeswax is used to prevent rust and blacken steel, rubbing it on heated pieces so it melts into the grain of the steel and prevents rust from starting. A mixture of beeswax, linseed oil and mineral spirits becomes a paste to rub on rusty and not-yet-rusty tools. And it can be used to lubricate the blades on your sickle bar for your haying work. http://keepingbackyardbees.com/using-beeswax-for-metal-work/

bee loss

We took down the other hive today, those bees had left as well. We will be looking for more bees in the spring.

Bee Medicine

http://apitherapy.blogspot.com/ this blog focuses on medicinal uses of honey, medical studies about any aspect of honey, etc.

Scientific quest to refine bee breeding

Breeding bees: Scientists aim to improve Canadian honeybee http://www.digitaljournal.com/science/breeding-bees-scientists-aiming-to-improve-the-canadian-honeybee/article/448633 via @digitaljournal